U.S. President Donald Trump sharply criticized the World Health Organization on Tuesday, accusing it of being too cozy with China and issuing bad advice during the coronavirus outbreak.
"The W.H.O. really blew it," Trump said in a Twitter post. "For some reason, funded largely by the United States, yet very China centric. We will be giving that a good look. Fortunately I rejected their advice on keeping our borders open to China early on. Why did they give us such a faulty recommendation?"
There were also signs the WHO ignored data from Taiwan, which indicated human-to-human contact was occurring, even as Beijing was saying otherwise. The WHO, under pressure from Beijing, does not recognize Taiwan, in line with the United Nations.
However, the criticism from Trump also comes amid growing concerns about how the White House handled the initial signs that a pandemic was coming, at times downplaying the risk to the US.
Trump did shut down many flights from China already in January.
Trump earlier this year praised China repeatedly for how it handled the new coronavirus outbreak, which originated in Wuhan.
